Revan's Shadow: Prologue - Present Day

The final shudder of the Ebon Hawk sent a shock through her body. The hum of the engines wound down and died, and for a moment all was still. Then Mission's voice burst out in a celebratory whoop, and time crawled onward once again.

Too late. That short moment was all she had needed to realise the full weight of her actions.

Revan found her there, squeezed into the corner of her bunk, arms about her knees, eyes moist and body quivering in shock. She looked silently upon her for a moment, then simply held out her hand.

Bastila looked at it for a moment, then slowly uncurled and allowed the redeemed Jedi to pull her to her feet.

Together they took the corridor around the main hold. Bastila could hear the others celebrating there. Carth's laugh, such a rare sound. Mission bouncing around, taking turns hugging everyone except Canderous - she could imagine the look of alarm on his face at the concept - and Zaalbar's happy howling. She couldn't hear Juhani of course, but Jolee was grumbling some wisecrack to her about something, and the droids were commenting on the celebratory habits of meatbags.

They were so happy without her. It was probably for the best. Her presence would only ruin the mood, dampen the emotion... she wondered which side of her was thinking it was a bad thing.

Revan led her out of the ship. Together they walked along the beach, away from the landing site and the temple up the mountain, away from everything and everyone else. They walked in silence, along one cove after another, until Revan decided they had gone far enough. She drew Bastila up to the treeline and sat in the sand. The sun was low over the ocean, illuminating the tears that had been running silently down Bastila's cheeks.

Now that they were still, she buried her face in Revan's shoulder and began to sob openly. Revan held her close, allowing Bastila's arms to encircle her ribcage and squeeze bruisingly tight. Revan didn't use the bond between them to strengthen Bastila's control over her emotions as they washed over her, over them both. Revan let the tears fall from her own eyes as she felt Bastila's guilt and shame, for there was also a growing glimmer of relief.

In time the sobbing lessened, then ended altogether. They watched the sun sink down behind the water, still clinging to each other.

"I've made a mess of your new robes." Bastila finally whispered.

"It's okay." Revan replied. "I don't like them anyway. I guess I'll always prefer black." she added with a tug at Bastila's Sith robes. A moment of silence followed, and then: "I've decided the Jedi council had the right idea, but went about it the wrong way. You were wrong, too."

"How so?"

"I'm not Revan. Revan never got a second chance. I got a first chance. Whoever I am," she sighed. "The Jedi code says 'There is no emotion, there is peace,' but the council violated my mind out of fear. Whether my memory loss was the result of the wounds I suffered in Malak's betrayal, or the council deliberately mindwiped me; they were afraid that reconstructing Revan's memory and personality would bring back a Sith lord instead of a Jedi knight. Revan cannot be punished for her crimes, and her atonement isn't hers, because it's mine." She shifted position to hold Bastila even tighter. "If you were given the choice to forget everything you are, everything you've done... would you choose not to be Bastila and be someone... invented?"

It was a long moment before Bastila gave her answer. "No, I would not." She thought about it some more. "Revan should have had the choice? Surely the council knew she would have resisted..."

"That's the heart of their crime. They knew. So they made me instead. They should have put Revan back together as best they could and let the Force take it from there. Instead, here I sit, unable to truly remember the full horror of everything I did; wishing I could, so I could feel what you feel... so we could get through this, together."

Revan could feel Bastila was glad she couldn't remember enough to do anything more than regret. She could feel the gratitude, the compassion - the love - reflecting between them as surely as the fading light of the sun. Revan tore her gaze from it to look into Bastila's eyes and saw hope burning there for the first time since her fall.

Bastila let Revan lick at the tracks her tears had made across her cheeks. When she kissed her, Bastila responded in kind. Together they lay back in the sand. Legs clothed in black entertwined with legs wrapped in beige as their tongues met. Hands slid across cloth and skin, into hair, under robes to the flesh within.

Bastila broke the kiss with a gasp. "But... passion..."

Revan paused. "On the temple, when you gave me that impassioned speech, trying to turn me over to the dark side... was it your love for me that was coursing through your heart, or lust for power?" She watched Bastila's face as she realised it was the latter, then continued. "Let's write our own code. There is no passion, without love..."

"...Love can save you from the dark side." Bastila finished with a smile.

The kissing resumed.


I know now that my earliest true memory is of Revan and Malak finding the star map on Dantooine. It does not truly conflict with the life I remember, because Revan's memories are far more distinct than the vague impressions I recall of the life that never truly was.

There was a reason for it at the time of course. The life of an anti-social scout must be easier to construct than the social interactions of a charismatic Jedi. I suppose the council believed Revan's amiability is why so many Jedi left with her to fight in the Mandalorian war, and why they followed her on the path of the dark side to the last man...save one. I wonder what happened to him.

My remembered childhood is of being raised by a community instead of particular parents; similiar to growing up in a Jedi enclave, no doubt. Many faces blur together, unlike the few I distinctly remember due to true familiarity.

I remember learning the basics on my homeworld of Deralia, a planet on which I was not born nor have ever seen with my own eyes. Hunting, trapping, camping. Revan's technological expertise was redirected from droid engineering, this time around; everything I know now is focused on maintainance and repair of general tech. Makes sense, for someone supposedly preferring the wilderness to civilisation. Is that why I preferred the more remote planets to the others we visited? Or did Revan prefer them as well? How much of her has survived her 'death' and how much of myself is remembered on some subconscious level, rather than planted in my mind by others?

I made a small fortune scouting across all of Deralia, and bought a small ship with it. I made a large fortune scouting the other planets in the system, and bought a hyperspace-capable ship with that. My 'constructed' memory of the planets on the outer rim that I visited includes Tatooine; I probably would have gone there first even if Mission's brother hadn't been there in the first place. So many planets, so many experiences...yet I recalled no specifics when it came to Anchorhead. I couldn't remember ever being there, but I couldn't remember ever landing anywhere else on Tat. It's not like there were any other settlements on the whole planet to visit, except for those of the Sand People of course.

Come to think of it, Tatooine is where my suspicions solidified into downright distrust of the Jedi council, as I recall...